The question about Stalin’s contribution to history is widely discussed in Russia. Although Russians with patriotic inclinations feel that this is a question of their identity, there is something about Stalin that is worth bearing in mind – his economic policy. This also explains why liberals hate him so much.

Stalin’s economy

After the Second World War, Stalin quickly restored the economy of USSR and achieved tremendous economic growth (about 30%) because under his rule the money supply was not increased. To cut it short, new factories started working, the amount of goods increased, but the total amount of money remained the same. Thus, prices were falling every year. On the contrary, the economic system we live in, is based on money-printing that ensures the domination of USA and that leads to constantly growing prices. So Stalin’s economy was definitely more citizen-friendly. What is more, the Soviet leader insisted on selling goods on the World market only for gold, not for dollars – because if you sell for dollars, you exchange goods for pieces of paper that keep getting cheaper and cheaper. After Stalin’s death in 1953, his successors accepted dollars instead of gold. This means that ts USSR became a part of the Western economic system – this was definitely not in favor of the socialist state.

Stalin’s successors

Stalin’s successor Khrushchev began the defamation of Stalin’s regime. Maybe Khrushchev was driven by some kind of an inferiority complex as long as his rule was marked with many fails and decisions that almost bordered idiocy – for example agricultural experiments that lead to very poor harvest.

Little know that Stalin was against fully planned economy as long as not everything could be planned and he wrote this in his last booklet Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR (1951). Khrushchev insisted on the opposite and began creating of a ”Communist society” that totally neglected market mechanisms. It is known what happened later, mostly after Khrushchev’s government: the quality of many goods in USSR was very poor – for example, Soviet cars. Even if we compare the architecture from the Stalin’s period to the one from his successors’, we will see the difference between massive buildings (Stalinist baroque) and ugly panel blocks of flats.

And again about the repressions

The myth about the repressions was initiated by Khrushchev as we already explained. The official data show that about 1-1,5% of the population of the USSR suffered from them. But do not get fooled – after the Civil War there were perfect conditions for criminality, especially in such a big country. So do not think that every one that was sent to GULAG was an innocent citizen that was repressed. There should be a difference between dissidents and criminals that were put to their place. And of you still call Stalin a tyrant: the rule of Peter І lead to the death of 25% of Russia’s population. Somehow Peter the Great is not blamed for that – he created bureaucracy and… did not prevent oligarchy from stealing.

Joseph Stalin was definitely a successful governor that created a system that was an alternative to the one we are suffering from but was recklessly destroyed. His ideas were a threat to the economy of money-printing so this is why he was depicted as a demon. Stalin’s defamation is a really good example of the usage of deceptions in the manner recommended by the Nazi propaganda minister Goebbels: “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.“